By: J.M.G. — 10/31/22
Consider: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” (St. Paul, Romans 8:35). Paul did not stop there, he continued: “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord,” (Romans 8:38,39 NKJV). But, the one thing that is capable of destroying us is our very own SELF!
Verses 31-39 is about all conquering power of God’s love – which has overcome all the things Paul makes mention of – Paul wrote of height of depth. It is believed that he had the zodiac in mind, positions of heavenly bodies relative to the horizon. In astrological documents the term for “height” = “exultation” or the position of greatest influence exerted by a planet. Since hostile spirits were associated with the planets/stars, he includes “powers” (v.38), the same “powers” he wrote about in Ephesians 6:12. The “present things” (v.38) and “things to come” (future, v.38) may refer to astrological data (astrologer’s usage).
Paul warns his listeners/readers of the danger of the “SELF,” the “carnal man/woman.” In Paul’s day (as well as through the centuries), penal pacification of some angry god or goddess was/is common. Let Paul’s words be heard: “There is now no condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh (i.e. carnality/self-lift), but after the Spirit” (Romans 8:1). (Read v.1-13). After Paul’s warning in chapter 7, he addresses the way of the Spirit vs. the flesh. The “flesh” is a metaphor for the person enslaved in sin or controlled by it (see 6:22). The “old man,” another metaphor. [Note: see the works of the “flesh”/“fruits of the Spirit” in Galatians 5].
Condemnation (Romans 8:1). Greek, katakrima, an adverse sentence, i.e. verdict, condemn/damn.
The question is: “Are you, am I, in Christ?” Salvation forgives our sins via repentance, but we still retain our “flesh,” hence, the constant war between spirit and flesh. The Christian life is therefore the experience of a constant challenge to put to DEATH the evil desires that would provoke evil deeds: “For if you live according to the flesh, you will DIE, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds to the body, you will live” (Romans 8:13). This is true Christianity. The silly idea that “once saved always saved” leads to the belief that one can live like Hell and still go to Heaven! Really? Where’s the proof?
The flesh is the DESTROYER of Humankind! This is why Paul puts forth several “vice” lists in his writings – 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 is one in which he mentions evil persons and evil deeds: fornication, idolaters, adulterers, homosexuals, sodomites, thieves, the covetous, drunkards, fighting, extortioners. All these will keep one out of the kingdom. Paul says, “And such were (past tense) some of you” (v.11).
Now, lets take a little trip to Greece. It goes without saying that Paul mentions these sins/abominations cause they were all part of the Greek world in which he traveled through. Sex sins were common, e.g. adultery, fornication, homosexuality. I know this subject is a no, no to talk or write about. I do this, not as to persecute or condemn those who do such things or are such, but merely to point out that certain sins, if not repented of, will keep you/me out of God’s kingdom. Keep this in mind as we delve into Greece’s history a bit.
Paul’s catalog of vices reflect the common moral sensibility of the New Testament period. [Note: for full definitions of these words see my sexual immorality series – 15 booklets plus CD’s/DVDs]. But for the sake of Greek history i.e. the sex-practices, I’ll mention a few Greek words:
(1) Fornication: pornos = a male prostitute, a debauch libertine, whore monger, from porneuo = to act the harlot (lit.), indulge unlawful lust (of wither sex (or fig.) practice idolatry (worship sex organs, male or female, especially penis/phallus worship). (See the Hebrew word also);
(2) Adulterers: moichos = a (male) paramount; (fig.), apostate: (see Leviticus 20:10 where the adulterer and adulteress are mentioned together). (See also Leviticus 18 for unlawful sex-acts);
(3) Homosexuals/sodomites: (see Hebrew qadesh= a male prostitute, from qadash = defile; Deuteronomy 23:17; 1 Kings 14:24, 15:12, 22:46; 2 Kings 23:7; Homosexuals are also called catamites, those submitting to homosexuals.
Please take note of 1 Corinthians 5:1, “sexual immorality.” In v. 9-13 Paul mentions “sexually immoral people,” (in v. 9-10), he brings it up again in v.11, “sexually immoral,” and in v.13 he says, “put away from yourselves the evil person” (reference to 5:1).
After Paul mentions the sex-vice list in 6:9, he mentions “sexual immorality” in v.13,18 (twice) and “sexual immorality” in 7:2. Paul, in his second letter to Corinthians (in Greece) he puts forth another vice list, 12:20, 21. V.21 he mentions “uncleanness” (which is connected to sex-sins), fornication (this word includes all unlawful sex-acts as one definition), and lewdness (which also is connected with sexual immorality). Chapter 13, verse 2 Paul calls all these vices in 12:20, 21 sinful. I could cite many other vice lists, almost all of them start with sex-sins.
Paul’s 1st and 2nd Thessalonians epistles were written from Greece, as well as 1st , 2nd Corinthians.
Corinth, a commercial crossroads was a melting pot full of devoters of various pagan cults and marked by a measure of moral depravity, especially sex-cults. Some believe his letters were written from Macedonia (see 2 Corinthians 2:12, 13; 7:5,6; 8:1-4; 9:2-4). It is said that Paul arrived in Greece AD. So, making converts in Philippi and soon afterwards, in Thessalonians. He encountered great persecution in these cities he moved on to Athens (see Acts 16:11; 17:15).
The reason I bring all this up in that Greece was given to sexual immorality. Besides what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 5:1, 9, 10, 11; 6:9, 13, 15, 18; 7:2 etc., he wrote in 1 Thessalonians 4:3 “That you should abstain from sexual immorality” (reference to 1 Corinthians 6:15-20).
He mentions “passion of lust, like the Gentiles” (i.e. those of Greece); verse 7 he writes: “For God did not call us to UNCLEANNESS, but to holiness.”
There is no doubt he was implying homosexuality et al. His theme in chapter 4 is sexual immorality, including heterosexual behavior, as well. Paul brings up “brotherly love” in 1 Thessalonians 4:9.
Greece was full of lust, not love. (More on this later). Paul mentions “uncleanness” in Ephesians 2:3, echoing 2 Corinthians 7:1, 2: “… let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh (sexual) and spirit” (idolatry)… we have corrupted no one…”
In Paul’s epistle to Timothy he mentions fornication/sodomites (1:10).
If unlawful sex-sins were not condemned, they would no be in the Bible. But today’s liberal church does not condemn or abstain from hetero/homosexual sins – some even praise them. There is not ONE verse in the Old Testament/New Testament where God or His true ones honor or praise or promote sex-sins. I say this that the guilty repent so as to miss Hell and obtain Heaven.
– History Lesson –
The Bible (not me) has a lot to say about sex-sins. Since these sins are condemned and by nature, destructive to body/soul/spirit, it is incumbent upon me to present this.
I’ll start with Plato (c.429-347 BC). He belonged to an Athenian (Greece) family that was aristocratic. He became an adherent of Socrates and devoted himself to philosophy. The reason I bring this up is amid a heavy homosexual aura (Socrates had hetero taste we are told).
Plato wrote about Socrates. His “Apology” is not a dialogue but an idealized and for the most part, imaginative version of Socrates’ defense at his trial. Symposium is one of Plato’s most original achievements in which he recorded the various speeches in praise of love (eras) delivered at a banquet. Michael Grant’s “The Classical Greeks”, states that the purpose of Symposic (in honor of the tragic poet Agathon, caricatured in a play by Aristophanes), was to show how this ‘Platonic love,’ excited in the first instance by a beautiful body, is becoming a rapturous ‘desire to beget the beautiful,’ a passion (of lust) for beauty, a super-sensuous, transcendental from which only the intellect can appreciate.
Plato’s idealistic philosopher, and master was a superlative master of Greek prose… powerful, graceful, many-faceted, flexible style, ranging lucidly, with the aid of sparkling metaphors, from humorous lightness to fervid solemnity.
Plato felt a powerful distaste for what he regarded as the “extreme democracy” (like what we have now under liar/fraud Joe Biden), that governed Anthens – the evil system that had executed his master, Socrates.
– Greece –
Modern Greece is only one of the heirs of ancient Greece. In past a history there was the near east Greece, and a Greece in southern Russia, a Greece of the west – S. Italy/Sicily. And within Greece there was sexual immorality, the kind Paul encountered when he wrote some of his letters.
Greece had many nude (male) statues (kouros) – god or idol young man – characteristic of Greek athletic society (with its strong homo trends also women goddesses). The societies of the Greek city-states promoted homosexual tendencies to an extent which, even in our own permissive/sex-craved/sex-obsessed time, remains.
We know in ancient Greece members in politics/military/athletics etc. spent their days with members of their own sex – homosexual attitudes were deeper than heterosexual relations with women. The multitude of kouros confirms this.
It is known that cities with old-fashioned “heroic” social structures, e.g. Thebes, Sparta, Elis and Thera, male partnerships, i.e. love between a lover and his younger beloved, received explicit recognition. In Paul’s 1 Corinthians 6:9 quote, in the NKJV he puts homosexuals and sodomites together. By “homosexuals” he meant “catamites,” those submitting to homosexuals (“homosexual” is a new coined word, it was not used in ancient times – sodomites/sodomy was used). (See Sodom in Old Testament/New Testament and sodomites in Deuteronomy 23:17/sodomites in 1 Kings 14:24, 15:12, 22:46; 2 Kings 23:7) – these texts show that sodomy/sodomites were condemend by God and Israel. The Greek word for Sodom is Sodoma. Jude 7 speaks of “Sodom and Gomorrah… having given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange (lit. “queer”) flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire!” [See Genesis 19:24).
Paul’s letter to Romans (1:24) says, “… God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies… God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use (heterosexuality) for what is against nature (lesbianism)… the men, leaving the natural use of the women (heterosexuality), burned in their LUST for one another, men with men (lit. male with males, which included older men with younger males, catamites) committing what is SHAMEFUL…” (Romans 1:24-27 NKJV). Paul, (Romans 9:29) wrote about Sodom and Gomorrah (quoting Isaiah 10:22, 23).
Because of men’s/women’s hard hearts/rebellion against God, God turned them completely over to sex-sins (Romans 1), thusly justified in His BURNING WRATH against them. While there was/is God’s universal love, there likewise is universal wrath. God had turned the ancient world over to self-indulgence, i.e. sexual immorality. All the things we read in Romans 1:24-32 are in our society now – even in the Churches. Plato made Phaedrus (one of his writings) pronounce that the most fordable army in the world would consist of pairs of male lovers (see Plato’s Symposium, 178c-179a). Historical records show that in the 4th century the Theban Sacred Bond was formed. Although official attitudes to home sex-acts varied, a whole educational philosophy was established up and around such male/male relationships… engaging in fantasy of the dramatists.
The Theban Sacred Bond had devoted homo couples (under Pelopidas: the Spartan Phoebidas seizes Thebes (liberated by Pelopidas in 379 B.C.).
In 359 accession of King Philip 2nd of Macedonia came to pass. He fought and won wars; in 337 BC he announced war against Persia, the same summer, at Aegae, Philip 2nd fell deaf, assassinated by a psychopathic homosexual courtier. The motive of the murder remained uncertain – some believe it had to do with Philip’s matrimonial affair. For one the weapons of his inter-state diplomacy was political polygamy, which caused power struggles within the royal circle. Philip’s 6th or 7th marriage to a Macedonian woman, again called Cleopatra, caused trouble.
Homosexuality was given great encouragement by the murder of the autocrat Hipparchus by the pair of lovers, Harmodius and Aristogeiton (514 BC), (the only substantial serving work on the theme is Aeschines, against Timarchus, Aeschines (c. 397-c. 322), despite Demosthenes’ abuse, was an Athenian patriot rather than pro-Macadonian though he was a member of the delegation sent to negotiate with Philip 2nd after Chaeronea (338 BC).
Polygamy was also endorsed/practiced in Greece. Philip the 2nd, according to Satyrus (quoted by Athenaseus) had his wives, in addition to Olympias and Cleopatra (sister of Derdas and Machetas) and Meda [daughter of the Thracion (norhgt Getae) King Cothelas]; moreover it is reported, Nicesipolis (of Pherae) and Philinna (of Larissa) had children by him, and they too were probably his wives. Polygamy is condemned in the New Testament as “canceled out” by what Titus says: “If a man is blameless, the husband of ONE wife…” (Titus1:6). The New Testament does not teach or promote polygamy. God allowed such a practice in the Old Testament because, mainly men/husbands were lost in wars, hence, wives (pl.) meant more children – hopefully males to repopulate. In the beginning God created male/female (not trans!) and He performed the first marriage: one wife to one husband. (See also 1 Timothy 5:9 = “The wife of one man.”) (See the word wife in Strong’s; never used in the plural, always singular, mentioned over 85 times. A man could have other wives only after a legal divorce or death of his only wife (not wives).
This will help one to see why Paul wrote against unlawful sex-acts in his letters. Greece (and Rome too) was a nation given to such. Leviticus 18 and 20 contain Israel’s Holiness Code and the consequence of practicing unlawful sex-acts: Leviticus 18:22 = “You shall not live with a male as with a woman. It is an abomination.” That sin carried the death penalty (Leviticus 20:13). This was the way God viewed such sins; the New Testament endorses God’s prohibitions.
